📗📗𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙻𝙰𝚆𝙵𝙾𝙾𝚃 𝙱𝙰𝚃𝙷📗📗𝚂𝙷𝙾𝚁𝚃 𝙶𝙷𝙾𝚂𝚃 𝚂𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚈📗📗𝚋𝚢 𝙻𝙾𝙺𝙰𝙻𝚈𝙻 𝙼𝙲𝙻𝙴𝙽𝙽𝙰𝙽📗📗Improved audio quality

A short ghost story I wrote as an analogy for the life experience of child abuse victims. People pay a lot of lip service to being concerned about children who are victims of childhood maltreatment. However, because they are traumatised and suffering from conditions like major depression and social anxiety, they end up being socially ostracized and even the target of further abuse from peers and teachers as children. This just causes more trauma from which many don't recover and they end up living their lives as lonely, broken little ghosts that no-one shows any empathy or kindness towards. They are trapped in the trauma imposed on them, the claw foot bath. It is why many end their lives prematurely.
The ball in the clawed foot represents the whole life of the victim of childhood maltreatment. The claw is the trauma and the cruelty of humanity that won't let them go and won't let them heal.
The term childhood maltreatment is the psychological term that encompasses all forms of child abuse.
Did you know that when a person experiences anything that causes psychological trauma, areas of their brain related to motivation and socialisation are physically damaged. fMRI scans of the brains of victims of childhood maltreatment show permanent lesioning in their brains. The lack of empathy from compassionless individuals makes this worse. If a child receives empathy and compassionate treatment some of this damage can be healed due to the plasticity of neurons in a child's brain. However, the level to which a love for cruelty exists in human society and the absence of empathic and ethical reasoning skills means that this seldom happens.
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[@whatisoceanwatching]

What a beautiful, haunting story. I'm so glad I found it on tumblr.

[@kindelfmclennan]

Thank you so much!